Birth, aging, sickness, and death are part of the natural order. From an ordinary scientific viewpoint, once life has ended, the body begins to decay. Yet throughout Chinese Buddhist history, there have been cases that seem to challenge that understanding.
For centuries, people have recorded accounts of highly respected monks and spiritual practitioners whose bodies did not decompose after death. In some reported cases, the joints were said to remain movable. In others, new hair and fingernails reportedly appeared. These accounts have long been regarded in Buddhist circles as genuine phenomena, even though modern science has not been able to fully explain them.
In Buddhism, such remains are often called “full-body relics” or “flesh bodhisattvas.” Among China’s sacred Buddhist mountains, Mount Jiuhua is especially well known for them. Located in Chizhou, Anhui Province, on the southern bank of the lower Yangtze River, Mount Jiuhua is celebrated for its natural beauty, with 99 peaks and 99 temples. It is also known as the site of 14 flesh bodhisattvas.
Two of the most striking modern accounts are those of the Buddhist Abbess Renyi of Mount Jiuhua and Buddhist Monk Miaozhi of Fujian.
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